


Jealousy

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humour, Jealousy, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River and John have a Plan. It’s a brilliant Plan, if a bit unoriginal. That’s alright though because the people they’re enacting the plan for take the term ‘socially retarded’ and prove exactly how much of an understatement it is.  And, as capable as the Doctor and Sherlock are of adding one and one together, if the equation doesn’t involve actual quantifiable values, it goes straight over both of their heads. Which is rather why they had to resort to the Plan in the first place. Because hopefully their genius idiots know enough about emotions to know what to do when jealousy rears its ugly head…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which John is a little nostalgic and finds a kindred spirit in Rory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stargatecrazy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stargatecrazy).



There were many things that Doctor John Watson looked forward to, but if he had to pick one thing to star on that list it would have to be the monthly piss-ups with the old boys. Not that any of them were particularly old, all things considered, but they were all ex-army or still serving and, compared to other men the same age as them, they felt ancient. They’d seen the worst of human nature and had returned home alive, if not quite whole any more. Because some of the things they’d seen - some of the things they’d experienced - went beyond words.

Of course, they didn’t use the piss-ups to remember the bad things. Not at all, they got together to relive the good old days, when they had fire running through their blood, when they were whole and fierce and invincible. There were a few who had been in the same squadrons, and John recognised a few faces from his surgeon’s table, but on the whole they had not served together. But they’d all been in the army and they all lived in the same area and they all liked to relive past glories over a few pints with the only other people who really understood.

John never got properly introduced to Rory Pond. He was a skinny lad, who looked too young to really fit in with the rest of them, but he had old eyes. The kind of old that, when John caught glimpses of the other man lost in memories, seemed to actually look through centuries, not the I’ve-seen-too-much-for-one-lifetime old of the others. He was a conundrum; a chaos of contradictions and, if there was one thing that living with Sherlock had done to John, it was make him curious about reading people from a glance.

None of their group remembered serving with him - which was hardly remarkable - but when asked about his service, when Rory brushed it off it was not with the confidence of knowing and not telling the other men had. It was nervously, as though he’d never fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. He had stories like the rest of them - more, perhaps, than most - and John was certain they were all mostly true. But there were always facts that he fudged or specifics that he glossed over.

If John didn’t know better he’d say secret service. But too much time (not enough?) with Sherlock convinced him that was not the case. No one ex-secret service was ever as young as Rory, and they’d certainly never go to the pub for a couple of pints with boys who’d only been army. But John was content to leave the mystery alone. He had his own secrets after all. None of these men knew about his blog - never would, if he had his way - they were the type who wouldn’t understand chasing around after a lunatic genius half a decade his junior in order to solve crimes. They’d done their bit for Queen and Country.

To be perfectly honest, John wasn’t entirely sure how they could stand it. A life - however short their stint in the army might be in real terms, it was always a lifetime - on the front line with bullets and blood and that intoxicating thrill of uncertainty… to return home to the mundane and dull? Where the most exciting thing they did was get drunk once a month with a bunch of other men who had a similar experience. Yes, John shared a past with these men. He did not share their present. Not at all.

But Rory… Rory still had life in his eyes. There was a hidden dare there, like he was just waiting for John to actually surprise him. Those old, old eyes, that’d seen so much. He could still be surprised, he knew he could be, but he was daring one of them, one of these modern day soldiers, to say something that would truly shock him.

Rory had started going to the ex-army meets for five months by the time John finally took him up on the dare. He told himself he shouldn’t, that if the others found out they wouldn’t understand John’s need for further excitement. They’d label him as ‘adrenaline junkie’ like so many before them had and would worry about whether he would suddenly bring out a gun and shoot them all just to feel something after the hell on Earth the war had put him through. But the dare in Rory’s eyes was too much for John to ignore. So he’d pulled him aside relatively early on Rory’s sixth visit to try and shock him.

“You’re a nurse,” John had started with because, God help him, yes he was starting to pick up some of Sherlock’s deductive techniques. And he was also a doctor and it didn’t take a genius (not of Sherlock’s level, anyway) to work out who was in the medical profession also. “But you have enough knowledge to be a doctor, you just haven’t passed your tests yet - no, you’ve no interest in taking the tests.”

Rory nodded. “Yep,” he said easily, taking a sip of beer. “And you’re an ex-army doctor bored with life.” He sounded bored.

And John couldn’t resist the shit-eating grin that spread across his face that was so similar to the one Sherlock wore when he’d struck gold on whatever case he happened to be working on. “Well… I wouldn’t say bored.”

Rory’s head snapped up and John suddenly had the younger man’s full attention.

“The others wouldn’t understand, but… I’m not just a GP.”

Nothing said again, but it was clear from Rory’s gaze that he was waiting for the punch line.

“If you found a dead body what would you do?” John asked instead of explaining a little further. Partly because he honestly wanted to hear Rory’s answer, but mostly because he spent the majority of his days with the most melodramatic person he’d ever met and he liked to even the score every once in a while - even if just a little bit.

Rory opened his mouth, but then stopped himself, hesitating on the edge of what most people considered to be the proper course of action and the way most likely to find the killer. “Cause of death?” he asked finally.

“Gunshot wound straight between the eyes.”

“Who’s the victim?”

John considered continuing the line of interrogation, but it was pointless. He didn’t have a particular case in mind and, unless Rory was a genius like Sherlock (just better at hiding it) John wasn’t really interested in hearing what his deductions might be. He had the answers he was looking for, just from what Rory had already said. His first reaction was not ‘phone the police’ dead body or not, obvious violent death or not. John felt oddly proud of that.

“Have you ever heard of Sherlock Holmes?” he asked instead.

Rory frowned, obviously recognising the name from somewhere, but not knowing where. This was hardly surprising. Both Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, when you started looking for their names, were mentioned quite a bit in the papers and other media. But only mentioned. If you didn’t look for them you wouldn’t see them. It was astounding, really, that they had such an ability to be entirely invisible whilst stating their names quite clearly to all who cared to listen.

“It rings a bell…” Rory said.

John shrugged. “Consulting detective,” he supplied. “Scotland Yard ask for his help when they’re in too deep. Which, if you’d believe what Sherlock has to say, is always.”

Rory chuckled. “Yeah, well. The police can be surprisingly blind when they want to be.”

The ex-army doctor chose to ignore that comment. Definitely not SAS. As far as he could tell, Rory was good at keeping secrets but not very good at keeping people from knowing he had a secret he wasn’t sharing with them. He’d make a rubbish spy. Rather than telling him that, he said, “He’s my flat mate.”

“And you’re his go-to guy?” Rory asked, and there was the knowing tone that John had been hoping for.

“Yes. For everything. From identifying cadavers to fetching milk.”

And, after the knowing tone, there was the surprise. “Well, I can’t say that I’ve been asked to identify too many dead bodies, but I know how it feels to be a general dogsbody.”

“Hmm, well, the Yarders are generally quite good at working out who the victim is without my help, but Sherlock claims the very presence of their lead forensics technician lowers the IQ of the room. Which basically translates to me being the only one Sherlock can stand for more than a few minutes.”

Rory appeared lost in thought for a moment, but it was not a mirror of years passed that John saw in his eyes this time. Instead it was a collection of fond, fleeting moments that were too precious to ever have a year or a date assigned to them. “We never needed a doctor,” he said, before adding. “Well, a proper doctor, probably. But-” he snapped back to the present and cut himself off, grinning sheepishly at John. “I may not have been entirely honest with you about being a retired army vet.”

John smirked at him and made a mental note to try and stop stealing Sherlock’s expressions. Still, John spent most of his time in the company either of a man who was undoubtedly ten times (if not more) his intelligence or around people who were of equivalent intellect. It was nice, every once in a while, to remember that, when compared to an average person, John was far and away a genius in his own right. Not that he was entirely convinced that Rory was an average person, but on intellect alone he was probably a little above the national average.

“I know,” he told Rory.

That comment earned him a narrowed gaze. “Oh?”

For a brief moment John considered ‘doing a Sherlock’ and rattling off a list of explanations and reasons before recalling that he wanted to make friends with this man and, though he himself found Sherlock’s deductions rather amazing, everyone else just thought it was a bit freaky. So he settled with, “You look too young.”

Rory gave an ever-so-slightly bitter laugh and John found himself wondering at the meaning behind it. When Rory didn’t offer an explanation, however, John didn’t ask for one. He had too many scars of his own to ask for an explanation of this young man’s. And, whether you considered emotional scars as bad as physical ones or not, it was clear that John had been poking too close to too tender a wound for a proper answer any time soon.

“I’m not really retired either,” he said. “I mean, yeah, I’m a GP. They all think it’s because I can’t afford to live in London on an army pension.”

“But that’s not what you mean by ‘not really retired’,” Rory noted. “To anyone else, working at any job is ‘not retired’. But in the army, it means-”

“I’m still in the thick of it,” John finished, downing the last of his pint and ordering another.

“So when you say that this ‘consulting detective’ of yours asks for your help every now and then, what you really mean is that he drags you into the middle of some absurd, crazy adventure, that you can’t escape from even if you wanted to. Which - coincidently - you don’t.”

John smiled widely at his new friend and nodded. “Speaks the voice of experience.”

Rory looked up at him and they shared a moment of understanding - there were some things about Rory that John would never understand and vice versa - in that moment it was clear they were kindred spirits. “Oh you have no idea,” the younger man groaned, dropping his head to the bar top. “My wife - I’d go to the ends of time for her - she doesn’t half come up with the craziest, half-cocked ideas.”

“Racing over rooftops,” John shot in. “In the middle of the night, to chase some crazy cab driver half way across London, me only a couple of weeks invalided home from Afghanistan, psychosomatic limp and all. I’ve only known Sherlock, what? Twenty-four hours at the most. You want to know what the bastard says?”

Rory shook his head, mirth already waiting behind friendly, much more open eyes.

“‘Dr Watson will take the room upstairs!’ ‘Says who?’ I ask. ‘Says the man at the door.’ So I go and open the door and it’s some bloke from the restaurant we’d been at before the chase started, handing me my cane and saying that Sherlock had texted him telling him I’d forgotten it - bloody nerve!”

“Got rid of your limp for you though,” Rory pointed out.

John grinned in reply. “Yeah. Much good it’ll do me when I die of a stroke years early because we’re chasing some hapenny criminal through London’s disused underground.”

“You love it,” Rory told him with such certainty that, even if John didn’t he might have been persuaded just by that tone of voice.

“So do you,” he replied.

“I love her,” Rory corrected and, for a brief, painful moment, John thinks that maybe - just maybe - they’re not as alike as he’d like to think. But then he opens the rest of his senses - not just his ears, listening to the words, but his eyes watching the body language, his foot where Rory’s excess energy rocks his slightly wonky chair against it every couple of seconds.

The other man’s grip on his glass is too tense, his eyes too bright, his body too carefully relaxed, for him to be perfectly happy as he is. No, Rory is like him, John thinks. He can happily pretend to be quiet and normal, and that it’s an inconvenience to follow his wife around on her adventures, but really… really, it’s all just an excuse. Because he’s got so good at following he takes his time in between trying to provoke a reaction, to get a new adventure started. And because there’s nothing he loves more than feeling the fire race through his veins, to know that he’s not invincible, but be perfectly happy with that, because that’s what makes it so exciting.


	2. In which much drunkeness ensues and River and John cuddle a bit

Rory and John become friends - best friends, even - astonishingly fast. Partly because of their once-a-month meet ups where neither of them felt they entirely belonged (although, more there than anywhere else) but mostly because they were the only people they complain to without sounding like lunatics. Of course, John has his blog, but that’s really not the same as meeting up with a mate and complaining about the things that you can’t mention to the rest of the world.

And John has to tell someone. After almost a year of living under the same roof as Sherlock he’d almost reached breaking point when he finally made friends with Rory. He couldn’t tell Harry, partly because of her break up with Clara, but mostly because she’s his little sister and that would be weird. He can’t tell anyone at Scotland Yard - they all think they know anyway, and none of them would be capable of not telling Sherlock. And he really can’t tell Mycroft. That’s too many levels of wrong.

But Rory is perfect, he understands and he doesn’t know Sherlock, except in an abstract sense. He doesn’t quite get it, of course, because his wife isn’t quite the same level of crazy as Sherlock and, well, John didn’t expect her to be a genius. Although it would have been nice.

“I love him,” John finally explained. “He’s completely insane, he’s lazy and a slob and he can’t eat or sleep healthily to save his life. And the job! He’s married to his work, and not just in the doesn’t-have-a-social-life way. Literally, doesn’t care about anything other than the thrill of the chase - the ‘Great Game’.” John says the last part mockingly and he hoped it didn’t sound too bitter. He’d never admit it out loud, and it’s not an emotion he’s proud of, but John is jealous of Moriarty. The flame of interest in Sherlock’s eyes that just his name fires up.

Rory watched John steadily - as steadily as he could after his sixth beer - and made a wordless noise of commiseration.

“You ever known anyone like that?” John asked. “Anyone so bloody brilliant he can’t see past the end of his nose? All he can see is what he wants to see and he’s completely and utterly blind to human emotion. Sherlock’s diagnosed himself as a sociopath, you know. It’s not true, but the fact that he doesn’t think of himself as capable of human emotions… God.” John put the half finished beer down on the table and lowered his head to his hands. “I’m setting myself up for a hell of a fall, aren’t I?”

“I dunno about that,” Rory replied with an easy roll of his shoulders, as though something that’s been weighing on his mind for a while has been lifted. “I know a man like that. Not immune to emotions, but he could do a jolly good job of pretending to be sometimes.”

“Yeah?” John peered up through his fingers, doing his best to squash the ray of hope that flares in his chest and failing abysmally.

Rory nodded, the movement more sloppy than it would have been had he been sober. “Married my daughter. Will marry. Is marrying. I dunno. At some point in time, relative to know, the Doctor will have married my daughter.”

John snorted a laugh. For a brief moment he thought it was a joke, but then he remembered the oldness of this man’s eyes. How young he looks and how old he must be. They’d only been friends for two months, but Rory had already told more stories than anyone who’s not yet thirty has any right to know. So, maybe, time isn’t to Rory what it is to everyone else.

“How old are you?” John finally decided with asking.

Rory looked at him for one long, confused moment. Hadn’t they been talking about River’s wedding? “29,” he told John. Then adds, “I think. I lose track sometimes.”

“Hah!” John shouted, pointing sharply and almost toppling his chair over backwards in the process. “Time traveller! Take that, Mr Holmes! We’re not all geniuses, but I’m not a complete idiot!”

It was at this point that Amy poked her head out of the patio door to check on the pair of confused and slightly glum men now occupying their garden. “Rory?” she asked accusingly.

Rory threw his hands up in the air. “I didn’t tell him anything!” he immediately denied, then took a moment or two to consider what he was being accused of. “Well. I said that River is/was/will be marrying the Doctor.” - John let out another triumphant ‘Hah!’ - “And he figured the rest of it out,” Rory finished miserably.

Amy eyed the pair of them for a moment, then sighed and shrugged her shoulders. She oughtn’t have been surprised really. She’d known from the moment that Rory and John had first stumbled home out-of-their-skulls drunk the first night they’d become friends two months ago that something like this would happen. She had known who Sherlock was, and as a by-product who John was as well. And if she’s learnt anything from her time travelling with the Doctor (other than, when he grins in a certain kind of way you really ought to run very fast away from whatever he’s grinning at but will, undoubtedly, end up running straight towards it) it’s that genius rubs off.

‘The Science of Deduction’ was the name of Sherlock’s website and she’d visited it a couple of times out of interest. But more interesting by far was John’s blog. Because it didn’t take a lot of figuring out to know that Dr John H Watson was a genius in his own right. Oh, he didn’t measure up to Mr Holmes, or the Doctor, not by a long shot. And that was rather the point, Amy suspected. John looked like he should be your average bloke, a bit smarter than average, perhaps, but nothing extraordinary. Which meant that any ‘bad guys’ - and there were quite a lot of those - would underestimate him.

And the thing about intelligent men is that a lot of the time if the simplest explanation doesn’t fit into a set of rules they accept as given about the world they live in, they dismiss them sooner or later. So John would soon dismiss the idea of them having travelled through time. Although, given how many empty bottles between the two of them, Amy rather suspected that John wouldn’t remember in the morning  that he had such an idea to dismiss.

“Rory,” John said, only slurring a little. “Have I ever told you how beautiful your wife is? And how reeeeed her hair is?”

“Stop it,” Rory tried to demand, turning to squint at Amy as well and grinning stupidly at her. “’S my wife.”

“I don’t fancy your wife,” John replied, looking a little annoyed that such an accusation was made. “But she’s got very red hair.”

Rory blinked some more, still grinning. “Yeah,” he agreed after a bit.

Amy watched as the two men sat on the patio, slumped in their wooden seats staring admiringly up at her. They’d probably had a bit too much to drink, she thought. That wasn’t a surprise. Neither of them were particularly heavy drinkers and it didn’t take a lot of alcohol to get them pissed and John had turned up on their doorstep earlier that evening with a hangdog expression on his face and a lot of alcohol in the plastic bags he was carrying.

“Ok, stupid face, let’s get you to bed.”

“Sherlock calls me an idiot,” John told her candidly as she bent to put one of Rory’s arms around her shoulder and shifted to take his weight, hauling him out of the chair and staggering upright. “D’you think he means it as a term of endearment?”

“I’m sure he does,” Amy said. If she’d been taking any of what John said seriously, she might have tried to sound more sincere about her answer. All that she’d read and heard about Sherlock indicated that, if the consulting detective wasn’t in love with John, he was very, very close to. But she wasn’t really listening and was far busier trying to manhandle her now-dozing husband indoors and up the stairs.

So John was left with a patronising answer and the rest of his bottle of beer. He stared at it for a long moment and contemplated bursting into tears. Not particularly manly, but the massive gay crush he had on his flatmate wasn’t exactly the height of masculinity either. He decided against it at any rate, because he had been in the army and he did have a gun and really, if he’d managed surviving for three weeks on his own in utter, mind-rending boredom before Sherlock came along without a emotional breakdown, he jolly well wasn’t going to have one now.

He downed the rest of the beer to reenlarge his testosterone driven side. Then immediately regretted it because he promptly started hallucinating.

Or, rather, he thought he began hallucinating.

Because one does not go from sitting on one’s own on an uncomfortable wooden chair on your best mate’s porch entirely _alone in the world_ to having a rather fit woman sprawled across your lap looking just a tad cross-eyed.

“Hello,” John said, wondering if it counted as having voices in your head if you saw things.

The woman - who had a rather astounding amount of curly hair atop her head - sat as upright as she could wedged between his lap and the table and tried to blink away her cross-eyed-ness. “Hello,” she echoed back.

“I’m John,” he told her. Even if she was a figment of his imagination, there was no point being rude about it.

“Why?” she demanded to know. “Why are you called John? All men are called John, it’s boring!”

There was a pause where they both sort of stared at each other for a while. John wondered if it was normal to hallucinate people that were also drunk. He thinks he ought to know that alcohol doesn’t make you hallucinate and that he should start worrying about whether Sherlock had tampered with the bottles. Which would have been bloody impressive, considering he’s pretty certain he picked them up after storming out of 221B and on his way straight to Rory’s. Heh. _Straight_. Not any more he’s not. Well. Rory is. Mostly. John thinks. John isn’t. Totally loop-de-loop in love with another man. Who wasn’t interested. Serves him right for going gay when his sister had done that years ago.

“Hamish,” John blurted out before he started declaring his love for a man in front of this gorgeous woman who might or might not let him get off with her if he doesn’t mention it and she turns out to be real.

“You said John,” she accused, probably trying to raise an eyebrow at him but she goes cross-eyed again so that’s just idle speculation on John’s part.

“I’m John,” he frowned back. One second she was complaining about how boring his name is, and the next she was trying to steal it? She can’t use the name ‘John’ anyway, she’s a _she_.

She glared at him and toppled forward a bit. It’s a bit painful because her forehead clonks against John’s chin but he doesn’t mind after that because now she’s properly sprawled on top of him. “You said John was boring.”

“It is boring.”

“Well Hamish isn’t.”

“But you’re name isn’t Hamish, it’s John. You said so.”

“It is too Hamish.”

“So you lied to me?”

John scowled. He didn’t think so. He doesn’t like lying as a rule, and tries to do it as little as possible. Of course, living with Sherlock means that ‘as little as possible’ is still a hell of a lot more frequently than John used to, but that’s really not the point. He’s pretty certain that he hasn’t lied about his name to her. Whose name he still hasn’t learnt, coincidentally.

“I can have more than one name,” he informed her primly. “Whuzurs?” That was meant to be ‘what’s yours?’ he thought, but the sentence lost momentum as her weight caused him to slouch lower in the chair and he had to put more effort into not falling off.

“River Melody Song-Pond,” the woman replied cheerfully and hiccoughed a bit. “I’m a bit drunk.”

John hummed. It began tunelessly and ended up as an off-key rendition of ‘All You Need is Love’. River Melody Song-Pond joined in singing the chorus and John’s bum lost the last of its dubious grip of the chair he was slouched in and the two of them fell to the ground with a muffled thump. Then John started giggling and so did she and when Amy came back downstairs, they were a big tangled pile of limbs that was shaking hysterically

Amy was a godsend, really she was, John thought about half an hour later curled up in a sleeping bag on top of a double bed. She’d pushed him in the direction of the bedroom and thrown a sleeping bag at his head. Which meant no luck on the getting-some front, but John rather suspected that that boat sailed a long time ago about the same time his heart decided that falling in love with an asexual maniac was a good idea. Or, maybe good idea was putting it too strongly. Inevitable was probably closer to the truth. He blamed Sherlock.

“John-who-might-be-Hamish?” a soft voice from the doorway broke into his thoughts.

“River Melody Song-Pond!” he exclaimed, a little too loud, and rapidly shushed himself.

She’s wrapped in a sleeping bag as well, and half hopped, half waddled across the room, flopping onto the bed next to him. “You can call me River,” she murmured, tossing her head a bit and getting her curls in John’s mouth.

“I’m John,” he said, pretty certain he’d said that before and that it had led to a lot of confusion, so continued quickly, “Hamish Watson. Hamish is my middle name, everyone just calls me John. You can call me Hamish if that’s too boring though.”

“John’s alright,” she confessed. “My Dad’s a nurse, you know.”

“I’m a doctor,” he replied. “My Dad was a lazy bum.”

“I love the Doctor.” And the way she said it, she doesn’t mean any doctor, she means one specific one, just like Rory had earlier. “He doesn’t love me though. I think I get on his nerves.” She settled her head on his shoulder, one arm that had worked its way free from the cocoon that she’s in slipped across John and hugged him.

John frowned up into the dark, a hand idly playing with River’s hair. He rather likes her, he thinks. It’s a shame that they’re both in love with other people, it seems like she likes him too. But Rory said that the Doctor would marry his daughter. And Rory’s surname was Pond (Williams-Pond, but everyone forgot that). And River’s name was Song-Pond. Which could just be Pond. Which meant that marrying was going to happen in relation to this point in time. Or something. So River would get her man.

She didn’t have him yet, though, and she was very good at cuddling, so John refused to feel guilty about wrapping his arms around her and going to sleep. They were in separate sleeping bags and she started it, anyway. But if all else failed he could blame Sherlock. John didn’t know how, but he was certain is was possible.


	3. In which more cuddling occurs and River has a very cunning plan

When he woke up it was with a hangover and lots of curly hair in his face. For a moment John panicked. As slim as his chances might be with Sherlock, it didn’t seem right to get involved with anyone else. Perhaps it was foolish of him, but John was a romantic at heart.

But as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and trying to calm his racing heart more and more of the previous evening started to filter back into his foggy mind. He’d considered it, he realised. Having sex with the woman now lying mostly on top of him. But it hadn’t happened. Because she was in love with someone else too. What a sorry pair they made, he thought, absently stroking her hair.

She squirmed a little, pushing against his hand in a wordless request for him to continue and rearranged herself so that a little more blood flow could get to John’s legs.

“What’re you thinking about?” she asked his chest. “Your heart rate increased rapidly but it’s calmed down again now.”

“Worried. Woke up with a strange woman. I’m in love with someone and, even if they’d never look twice at me, it seems wrong.”

She - River, his mind helpfully supplied - wiggled a bit again. “I know the feeling. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

John let out a croaky laugh and agreed, “Yeah, just a bit.”

“But you’re alright lying in bed cuddling?” she asked curiously, muffled a bit by the sleeping bags.

“Well, you’re in love with someone else and if it didn’t happen last night, it’s not going to, is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

They both considered this question for a moment before River retracted it. “No, of course not. Still, since we’re hopeless cases and all, it’s nice to have someone to cuddle, isn’t it?”

John agreed and continued petting her hair. He’d had a friend like that once before, back at University. Friendly girl, gay as the night is dark and more tactile than anyone John had ever met before or since. She’d latched onto him like a limpet - literally, in some cases - and rapidly become one of his closest friends. It was nice, they’d found, to be able to flirt with someone who wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Of course, then he’d introduced her to Harry and it had all gone downhill from there.

“I fancy a cup of tea,” he told River after they’d basked for a while more.

“Mm,” she’d responded, rolling away from him and burrowing into her sleeping back so only a few curly tips of hair were poking out. Somewhere in the grumbling there might have been a request for him to bring a cup for her too, so John decided to play the good Samaritan this time round.

Nudging his way out of his own sleeping bag and off the edge of the bed (noticing with some alarm that the world started spinning very rapidly and increasing the pain of his headache when he was upright) John stumbled from the room and made a very valiant effort to avoid collapsing against the doorway. It didn’t quite work, but he didn’t fall over or bash his head on it, so he considered that a plus.

“To look at you, you’d think you were only just discovering how to walk,” a bright, too-loud voice told him.

“Shush,” John ordered it, pulling at his pyjama bottoms a little self consciously and continuing his weaving journey top the kitchen. “Tea,” he pleaded. He was certain he’d been capable of more coherent speech only moments before.

Amy smothered a laugh and shooed him onto one of the barstools, popping on the kettle and getting down a couple of mugs.

“Need one for River too,” John requested. “Please,” he added politely.

Amy’s gaze turned sharper and her movements more tense as she reached for a third mug. “So. River. I’d noticed that she wasn’t in the room I’d left her last night.”

John started to nod and stopped just as quickly. “Yeah. She slept with me.”

The redhead’s irritated frown became a full blown scowl. “You-” she started to shout.

“No!” John interrupted hastily, making ‘shushing’ movements with his hands. “Not how it sounded, I swear! Me in my sleeping bag, River in hers. We just cuddled a bit. We’re both in love with stupid geniuses, see. We decided in our drunken states that commiserating together might be better than just moping individually.”

“And was it?” Amy asked, pouring out the hot water and pretending not to notice that John had withdrawn his hands from the countertop to a distance safe from potential splashes.

“Yeah. I think. Well, doesn’t make either of us anything other than fools in love still, but it was nice to have a bit of human contact.”

The scowl was back as John took the tea from Amy and he couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. Just the smell of the brew was making the hangover lessen.

“Just cuddling, Amy, I promise. I’ve done nothing to damage the virtue of your daughter.”

“My-”

“She introduced herself as River Melody Song-Pond. Rory mentioned something about time travel and his daughter marrying a genius idiot shortly before she appears - from nowhere, I might add - and starts moaning about being in love with a man who’s very smart, but a wee bit oblivious. I know that I was rather drunk last night, but it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots.”

“You seem surprisingly unsurprised about the whole time travel business,” Amy said. It wasn’t really a question but it might have well have been.

John took a sip of tea and bit his lip to contain his moan - there was nothing that compared to the first cup of tea in the morning, especially when rather worse for wear after an evening of over-indulgence. “You see odd things when you go to war. Things that can’t be explained. People that live who should have died. People that died who should have lived. Guns that don’t fire bullets and bullets that aren’t bullets. As a surgeon I was faced with a lot of inexplicable things, but I did what I’d been trained to do - not to ask questions.”

He took the time to take another sip and pondered on this for a bit. “There wasn’t really time, when I was in Afghanistan, to think about it. When I got back there was too much time. Then there was chasing about after Sherlock. Somewhere, at some point down the line, I must have accepted the facts. I don’t consciously remember doing it. But you meet people, every once in a while, who aren’t human. They’re still _people_ , just not as most people understand it.

“I didn’t know about the time travel part of it, but if there’re aliens, there must be spaceships and ways to travel faster than light. Not a great leap of logic.” John finished, mulling it over. It sounded stupid when he said it out loud, when he actively thought about it. It made him sound like one of those wacky American farmers that popped up in the news every now and then, claiming they’d been abducted. The surgeons saw more of the strange happenings than any other of the soldiers because of the nature of their job, but it was an unwritten rule throughout the forces that you just don’t talk about it. John suspected that many of the men were happy living in denial about the things they saw. And he wasn’t just talking about aliens.

“You’re in love with Sherlock,” Amy chose then to say, apropos of nothing.

“Rather,” John agreed amiably. There was no point denying it now. He’d tried to moderate the emotions that came across in his blog, but no matter how hard he tried it only fuelled the fire for the gossips. Sally Donavan had even gone so far as to offer her condolences for ‘falling tits over arse for a freak like him’. John hadn’t even bothered to tell her not to call Sherlock a freak; he’d long since realised that, as odd as it might seem to everyone else, it was more a term of endearment than anything else.

“River’s in love with the Doctor, of course,” Amy continued, staring absentmindedly out of the window now.

“Her stupid genius.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Amy answered anyway; “mine and Rory’s too. But, yes, River’s in particular.”

John considered that the conversation was getting a little too dreary for his tastes, so decided to lighten the tone a tad. “Does he refuse to eat sometimes?” he asked cheerily. “Your Doctor, I mean. As a medical man he should no better, but you know what true geniuses are like.”

“Idiots,” Amy agreed with a wicked grin. “He’s not a doctor in the traditional sense, though. At least, I don’t think he is. It’s just that he likes… saving people. It’s who he is, not what he is.” She paused and frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat, except for that one time at the beginning.”

“Oh? Do tell. There sounds like there’s a story there.”

Amy smothered a giggle into her hand and launched into the story - her story of the raggedy doctor and his desire for fish fingers in custard.

“Oh, mum, not again,” River cut in, not flailing quite as badly as John had been when he’d stumbled into the kitchen earlier. “Every time you meet someone - _every time_ \- you tell them this story. Half the neighbours think you’re loony.”

“I’m Scottish. The English think we’re loony by default.”

River rolled her eyes and snuggled up to John’s side as she reached around him to get to her cup of tea. It seemed only natural for him to wrap an arm around her as she did so. She had just enough height on him to make it an easy movement to do and rest his hand on her hip.

“Amy. Stop it,” River scolded, not looking up.

Amy huffed and blew a strand of hair from her face. “I can’t help it if you two are going to act all lovey-dovey in front of me. You’ve always been obsessed with the Doctor. Seeing you with someone else is… weird.”

“She’s not-”

“We’re not _seeing_ -” River and John protested at the same time, causing another bout of giggles from the redhead, which before long set the both of them off two. There was a familiarity to the ridiculous giggling fit and in one quiet corner of his mind John wondered if these two women an equivalent to the inappropriate-at-a-crime-scene giggling fits he and Sherlock all too often indulged in.

“Although…” River began once they’d calmed down.

John hefted a sigh before she could continue, unwrapping his arm from her waist to cradle his now-empty tea mug with both hands. “I’m not going to like this, am I?” he remarked. Amy giggled in response and River ignored them in an exaggeratedly stately sort of way.

“We could pretend to be. It would certainly be no chore.”

John blinked. Well. At least she’d said ‘pretend’. If River had suggested actually going at he might have had to say no, closeted adrenaline junky or no. There were just some things that he didn’t want to risk, even if he never really had them in the first place. Rather than voicing any of this, however, what came out of his mouth was a spluttered, ‘what?’

River wrapped her arm around him and hugged him to her side (really, the extra height she gained from all those curls was ridiculous. As if he wasn’t short enough in comparison as it was) and smiled in a dangerous way. “Catch your man’s attention, no doubt,” she told him like it was a promise. “And it’ll definitely turn the Doctor’s head.”

“What, as in… make them jealous?” John said, spluttering again.

“Hmm,” River agreed wordless, ignoring the howls of laughter from her mother as Amy enjoyed the astonishment in John’s face.

John considered it for a moment. He knew, after all, that River would get her man. And what harm would it do his no-chances prospect with Sherlock? None at all. Still, the idea of actually pretending to date someone to make someone else jealous… it all seemed very adolescent. “No,” he finally settled on. “If I get asked directly if I’m dating you or seeing you or whatever, I’ll tell them the truth.”

“But?” River prompted, trying not to look too disappointed.

“It’s nice to be cuddled,” John admitted with a shrug and a smile that looked too sly for the caring face it was on.

River grinned back and gave John a smacking kiss on the forehead. “Brilliant!” she announced.

“Oh God,” Amy gasped around her continued laughter. “I feel like I’m the mother of two teenage girls who’ve just declared a hormone-driven war of subterfuge on the idiocy of boys in general,” she declared, ignoring John’s protests that he wasn’t a _girl_.  



	4. In which Sherlock deduces River's existence and totally fails to crash any of her 'dates' with John

Five weeks passed before the plan was mentioned again, but John wasn’t an idiot, wasn’t blind to what River was doing. She’d surprise him when he finished the later shifts at the surgery, greeting him with a bounding hug and a sloppy kiss to the cheek. She’d take him out to dinner or to go ice skating or to the theatre. On one memorable occasion she picked him up from a crime scene having been abandoned there by Sherlock (again) on a motorbike that Lestrade had eyed enviously.

But she made sure to avoid Sherlock. She draped herself over him, and he reached for her not caring who saw. Not thinking about what it would look like. It was never more than hugs and kisses to the cheek or forehead. To them it was never anything other than entirely platonic, a simple exchange of human touch and affection that neither of them received from anyone else. But to anyone else it would look like a couple who were unashamed to hug and hold hands in public but polite enough to keep anything else in private.

Sherlock knew, of course. The first night that John had met River (who normally went by either River Song or Melody Pond, not a drunken mishmash of the two) the consulting detective had frowned at him as though trying to puzzle out something that didn’t quite fit into the expectations he’d set for his flatmate. John has secretly quite pleased that this expression was not an uncommon one.

“You slept with a woman last night but you did not partake in coitus with her. That’s not like you, John, I hope you’re not suffering any erectile dysfunction?” he’d asked coolly some time later, apparently unable to draw a conclusion he was entirely happy with and resorting, instead, to _asking_. How Sherlock must have hated it.

John smiled a little to himself. It was always a pleasant surprise when he managed to baffle Sherlock. And he did, perhaps, draw a little of his own hope from the fact that Sherlock hoped that ‘little John’ was all in working order, so to speak. “I had a little too much to drink and the woman in question was a relative of Amy and Rory. If I ever were to have sex with her it would be when I was fully cognizant. We just ended up sleeping in the same bed.”

Again, Sherlock frowned. “Amy and Rory have a large townhouse with two guest bedrooms and a study with a futon in it. Why would you need to sleep in the same bed?”

“We didn’t _need_ to,” John replied, hoping the inflection would be enough to satisfy River’s ridiculous plot to incite their respective loves into a jealous rage… or whatever it was she wanted.

Sherlock sniffed disdainfully and returned his attention to the papers he’d been studying prior to John’s arrival. “You should avoid drinking so much. You know your family have addictive personalities.”

By which Sherlock meant that they were all - or had been, at any rate, since it was only him and Harry left now - drunkards. “Yes, thank you Sherlock,” John snapped, drawing out the ‘s’ phonetic of the ‘yes’ more than he’d intended and revealing his annoyance at the remark more than just the sarcastic comment would have.

Sherlock’s shoulders had stiffened and for half a moment John though he might make another insult, or apologise, or call his emotional response foolish. But then the shoulders relaxed once more and his flatmate had settled into happily ignoring his existence until he needed his help once again. John had berated himself at that - self pity didn’t get anyone anywhere.

But as the five weeks passed, that tension in Sherlock’s shoulders only got worse and the caustic remarks about John’s love life, from anyone else, would seem bitter. Always, always, Sherlock would return to that safe little bubble he built around himself and ask, almost happily; “So she _still_ hasn’t put out for you? You must be losing your touch John.” And he became more and more irritated each time John merely shrugged and smiled.

The wonderful thing, John had noticed, about having a friend who was a time traveller, was that it was up to her when they met. Which meant that there were no plans for Sherlock to destroy, no dates he could plot against in advance, and no way that he could ‘accidentally’ crash whatever activity they’d chosen to do. Sherlock was brilliant, certainly, but he could only know as much as John and it was always River who chose when and where and for how long.

“So do I ever get to meet your latest diversion?” Sherlock eventually grumbled after five weeks of trying to invite himself along to one of their ‘dates’ and failing time and again.

“Diversion?” John asked, chuckling to himself. Perhaps, just perhaps, River’s plan might work. “I’m sure you will at some point.”

“What, is she too good now to meet the lowly Mr Holmes?”

“Lowly?” Again, John questioned Sherlock’s choice of words. If he hadn’t been directly told by the man himself that he was married to his work John might actually think him jealous. “You’ve never been ‘lowly’ in your life,” he teased. Then, “It’s not that I don’t want you to meet her, Sherlock, it’s just that I never know when I’ll see her next. I am at her beck and call.”

“Oh, _joy_. Finally someone else you’ll follow around like a lost puppy,” Sherlock hissed.

John should really start learning to expect such remarks from Sherlock. Still, having the fact that there was no real need for him to be in Sherlock’s life never failed to hurt, especially when wielded by Sherlock. Regardless, he flinched away from Sherlock, wincing as the emotional pain bloomed across his chest much like a bullet wound might. “My apologies,” he said stiffly to his flatmate, turning his back on him to lend all of his concentration to making the tea.

“John - I didn’t mean to imply that-” Sherlock started, abandoning his repose on the sofa in favour of clambering across the living room to watch John.

“It’s fine,” John interrupted bluntly. “It’s all… fine.”

Sherlock watched as John shuffled about their kitchen. “Your deltoid and trapezius muscles are more contracted than simply holding up your head requires, your left hand is shaking and you are favouring your right leg; an indication that your psychosomatic pain is bothering you. You are not, by any account, ‘fine’.”

“Sherlock. Seriously, just leave it,” John ordered roughly.

And, as ever, Sherlock ignored him. “I am sorry that I implied that your assistance was something I do not appreciate and require. I find it difficult to… share. Your presence is something I enjoy and I dislike being denied it.”

John huffed and placed his tea mug down heavily on the counter. “You git, Sherlock,” he said fondly. “I’m not denying you my presence. Have I ever not responded to your texts when you ask me to meet you somewhere.” He quickly cut Sherlock off when the man opened his mouth to argue with him, “I’m not including any times when I’m half way across London and you need help fetching your mobile from your own pocket.”

Sherlock’s mouth snapped shut. “So if you were on a date with River and I required you to be at a crime scene…?”

“You know you’ve already cut my time with her short no less than four times,” John reminded almost gently. He specifically did not call his meetings with River ‘dates’. He would not _lie_.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said, surprising John. It was a rare occasion that the other man ever expressed gratitude for anything and normally only in the most dire of situations, usually reluctantly and under a threat of some sort. And this was none of those times, John didn’t even know what it was he had done that required Sherlock to thank him.

“You come first, Sherlock, you know that,” John murmured to the still air between them and it seemed like more of a confession than it really was. If John regarded their friendship a little less - if he was willing to risk everything he had with Sherlock - the words might have been in plain hearing rather than hidden behind something else. If he was less - or more - of a man John might have said ‘I love you’.

“The case comes first, John. Always,” Sherlock responded with a bright grin. It was a joke, supposed to diffuse the tension and eliminate the remaining awkward emotions that Sherlock didn’t know how to deal with at the best of times.

It didn’t stop John’s heart from breaking just a little more and reminding himself harshly that he had always known that Sherlock was married to his work. River’s plan seemed ever more ludicrous in light of this. Still, he’d do it for her sake, so that she might get the Doctor. And then, once she’d married him, John would return to his hopeless love, to being the ‘freak’s sidekick’, as Donovan had taken to calling him, and he would be content with whatever he could get a hold of.

So he smiled and nodded and picked up his tea and a copy of yesterday’s paper and settled into his armchair. Perhaps they ought to consider getting an actual dog if only so that people would stop referring to John as one.

-

It was John who broke the silence about the Plan in the end. Five weeks and two days after meeting River he and Sherlock were summoned to the crime scene of the second of two murders where the cause of death appeared to be choking on a grey, sludge like goo. The difficulty with the case was that there was no explanation for why the goo had not simply been swallowed by the victim or why it was in their mouth in the first place.

Sherlock was mumbling deductions under his breath - this case was too intricate for even a Holmes brain to boastfully show off to anyone within hearing range - when John saw River approaching from the other side of the police barrier. He’d texted her saying that Sherlock had expressed a wish to meet her and suggested that she might want to pick him up early from a crime scene or accompany him home next time. This, apparently, was her response to that.

“I’ll be right back,” John told Sherlock, more for his own sake than the detective’s, who was too busy inspecting the victim’s gums to pay much attention to anything else. Then he made his way over to the police barrier, ducking under it to greet River with an enthusiastic hug.

“Hey, John,” River welcomed, ruffling his hair affectionately.

“Hello, love. We might still be a while yet, I’m afraid, this is looking to be a tricky one,” John apologised. Of course, whether it was or not couldn’t really be predicted at this stage, but the fact that Sherlock was still absorbed by what the body was - or wasn’t - telling him was pretty indicative. He leant against her for a brief moment, silently taking the support she offered, and giving back a smile.

River moved away before long and studied him, looking for answers to questions John didn’t know. “Actually, I’m not just here for you, this time. I know who killed this man and how.”

“You do?” John squawked, before quietening and blushing a little at his outburst. “Is it - something beyond an Earthly scope of understanding?” he murmured, and the question caused her to chuckle warmly.

“I do love your odd little turns of phrase,” River told him, grinning. “And if by what you just said, that the killer’s an alien using alien means - the answer’s yes.”

John couldn’t help but grin back. “Sorry. Bit weird saying ‘alien’ like it isn’t something from a sci-fi movie.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she assured him.

“Yeah?”

River chuckled again. “Well, the Doctor’s on his way and he moves so fast he doesn’t leave enough time to feel weird.”

And didn’t that sound like someone John knew? Smiling, he turned back to look across the crime scene expecting to watch Sherlock crouching over the victim, only to see the consulting detective standing ramrod straight and glaring across at the pair of them. John sighed and dropped his arm from around River’s waist. “I think you’re about to be introduced to one of the most difficult men on this Earth - or any other planet I suspect.”

“And the one you love,” River continued knowingly for him.

“Yes. God knows why,” John agreed amiably, winking to diffuse the implied insult.

Then, sure enough, Sherlock swooped towards them, long cloak flapping out behind him in the breeze caused by his movement. “John,” he said with nary a glance, instead studying River and scowling fiercely. “And you are River, I presume?”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” River replied flirtatiously, batting her eyelids at him. “You are a handsome one, aren’t you?” She shot an approving grin at John, who blushed and looked away.

Sherlock watched the exchange with some measure of confusion, although only those that knew him best would recognise it as such. Confusion on Sherlock, looked like great annoyance on anyone else. “You don’t make sense,” he announced abruptly, considering her head to toe.

John stifled a laugh at that and continued to purposefully not look at either of them.

River was not so shy about her amusement and smiled openly. “Yes, I can imagine that. I’m sure you can tell me anything about myself from what I had to breakfast this morning to where I spend the majority of my time, but I’m sure you can’t work out-”

“Your parents,” Sherlock interrupted her. Breakfast; croissants. Residence; prison. Parents; Amy and Rory? It didn’t make sense. The only part of his deductions he understood and did not doubt in any measure was what she ate for breakfast (also the fact that she was dressed up for a date with John, but considering she was here to pick him up to disappear off to wherever they went, it was so easy a deduction Sherlock did not really count it as such). “If you were younger or they older, I’d say that Amy and Rory…”

“They are,” she told him cheerfully. “And yet, puzzlingly, I’m several years older than both of them. Well, I am at the moment anyway.”

And it was that hint that Sherlock grasped hold of with both hands. “Time traveller,” he concluded, then wrinkled his nose. “Why would you chose John, of all people?”

John recoiled sharply from that question, the easy stance of a civilian with two of his closest friends becoming instead the pose of a soldier balancing on the balls of his feet and ready for battle. “Cheers, Sherlock, for that resounding vote of confidence. I’ll go talk to Lestrade and get our copies of the witness statements, shall I?” Then he picked up the crime scene tape, walking past Sherlock - careful not to touch him - and disappearing back into the house.

“He is being more sensitive than usual,” Sherlock remarked.

“Is he?” River asked. “Or are you being less sensitive?”

“What I said was not a comment as to his worthiness of a partner, merely that he finds no difficulty finding sexual partners but can never keep hold of them for long. I find it difficult to understand why someone who had all of time to chose from would pick someone that they will ultimately spend very little time with.”

“You don’t start a healthy relationship thinking about how it will end. You start one with the assumption that it won’t. The reason that John can not stay with one person is they get fed up with him abandoning them in favour of you. In that respect, a time traveller is perfect, because we can spend as long as we like together and I can still get him home in time to save your life.”

Sherlock considered that for a moment, then shook his head. “He said that his time with you had been cut short four times since the beginning of your relationship. Was he lying then?”

River half smiled, her eyes following the slightly hunched shoulders of John as he remerged from the house, stopping to exchange words with Donavan as he made his way towards him.

“He wasn’t lying. We could have carried on and I could have taken him back a couple of hours, but instead he chose to cut our meeting short. I think, perhaps, you need to consider what that means. Nice to meet you, Mr Holmes.”

Then John was there again, thrusting the pile of papers into Sherlock’s hands and dodging under the tape again. He wrapped an arm around River’s waist, and bid a swift, stiff farewell to Sherlock, before the pair of them turned away and headed down the road, second left, third right and there, at the end, their path would take them to conspicuous blue box.


	5. In which Dr Watson meets the Doctor and everyone plans to meet at Angelo's

River was very good at getting the timing right. _Very_ good. It was a little bit scary actually. Or, it would have been, had John any idea how much effort it took to get her where the Doctor was at any given point in time. And there was an awful lot of time. An awful lot of space too, but the Doctor always returned to Earth so that bit was easier.

As it was, however, they burst around the corner of the end of the alleyway just as the Doctor burst out of the TARDIS. He was all long, gangly limbs and crazy hair and John couldn’t help but be struck by how very much like his Sherlock this man was. There was the same, nameless energy to him as well that teased everyone around him into action - most of the time to do as he suggested and often getting them into trouble.

The timing resulted in the fortunate colliding of the Doctor into River and the pair of them tumbling to the ground, John reacting fast enough to withdraw his arm and watch with amusement. He could not fail to notice how River’s arms came around the Doctor’s sides, her hands flattening across his back and holding him in place, even as the poor man tried to scramble of her.

“Hello, Sweetie,” she purred, winking at him.

“River! Hello. Sorry. For - falling on you.” He stood abruptly and dusted himself off, looking for all the world like a teenager caught groping his girlfriend behind the bike sheds. He did not offer River a hand up, the absence of this action going noticed only, really, by John who was used to being the chivalrous one in any given situation.

So John stepped forward, offered River a hand and tugged her up to standing, wrapping that arm around her waist once she no longer needed his hand.

The glare he got from the Doctor for doing so was astronomical in proportions and John couldn’t help but wonder why River had asked for his help at all. It was clear the man - if he was, indeed, a man, and not just a humanoid alien of some sort - in front of them was head over heels in love with River. Then there was that subtle change of emotions that John had learnt to keep his eyes open for since Sherlock’s first mockery of his observational skills. The slight shaking of the head, the drooping of the eyelids and the downward curve of his mouth. Denial it was then, and a pretty bad case of it to if River was half so demonstrative towards him as she was towards John.

“Hello,” John greeted amiably, reaching forward his right hand, the one not resting on River’s hip and therefore not the one the Doctor was looking at. “I suppose you have another name,” he prompted, “Although I can call you ‘sweetie’ too, if you’d like?”

“Who are you?” the Doctor snapped, eyes narrowing, taking John in from top to toe, much like Sherlock did on a regular basis. Although he was somewhat quicker about it, a fact that John decided on the spot to never share. Sherlock had a competitive streak a mile wide.

“Dr John Watson,” John replied as simply as he could, letting his unshaken hand fall back to his side. “And you are?”

“The Doctor - _just_ the Doctor. No silly monikers for me!”

John smiled to himself and dipped his head in acquiescence. There was no point in arguing with a self-assured genius after all, even if the genius was lying. John had lost count the number of times Sherlock’s ‘lucky guess’ was the part of his genius that saved then.

“Right, now we’re all introduced,” River cut into their staring match cheerfully - a little _too_ cheerfully, really. “I’ve a favour to ask, Doctor.”

“Yes?” both of them replied at once. John had known that it was _the_ Doctor she was talking to, but he was finding it amusing to watch someone so similar to Sherlock getting all prickly and territorial about something that wasn’t a dead body or a so called experiment. River repaid him for a friendly pinch to the side and John hid his grin in her hair.

“ _The_ Doctor,” she reiterated in what was sure to become a joke to her and John and an endless source of irritation for the Doctor.

The Doctor huffed and pouted a little - no longer a guilty teenager, more like a toddler being denied pudding after dinner. Dear lord, were all genius men like this? Prone to acts of childishness when they didn’t get their way? Even Mycroft, when Sherlock didn’t take the cases he wanted, would throw a fit and force his hand. Not that he’d ever call it that.

“What favour? Since you dragged me half way across the galaxy and a dozen or so millennia?”

River smiled broadly and winked. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours about Sherlock Holmes,” she started suggestively, trailing off and letting the Doctor finish the thought for himself.

“Of course I - oh. OH. Haha!” He jiggled excitedly on the spot, and rubbed his hands together excitedly, leaning forward and extending himself towards John so he could look the shorter man closely, directly in the eye. “You’re _that_ Dr John Watson. Brilliant!”

John couldn’t help but chuckle at this enthusiasm like he couldn’t help but to at Sherlock’s. “I think I’ve been promoted up from ‘scum’ in his opinion,” he told River in a loud whisper.

The Doctor’s gaze narrowed, zooming in again on the hand John still balanced on her hip. “But -” he began.

“Not yet,” River interrupted. “Not a word, my dear. Spoilers!” she leant forward and tapped a finger to the end of the Doctor’s nose, that he wrinkled back at her.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Now, I suppose we ought to get our time lines straight. Where are you up to?” he asked, pulling a battered blue book from a jacket pocket as she pulled it’s twin from her bra.

“Do you two mind if we find somewhere to eat before you two get all timey on me? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

The Doctor looked affronted. “‘Timey’? What’s that supposed to mean? River, did you -”

John cut him off before he could start laying into River. “Listen, Doctor, I realise that the only way you know about me is through Sherlock, but you must know that a genius like that would not suffer having an idiot around for long. I worked it out for myself. Although, if you really wanted to try and keep your strangeness from me, you might have shut your spaceship’s door when you came out. Even _I’m_ not blind enough to miss the fact that it’s bigger on the inside. Now, if your diaries share more traits with your box than just colouring, can we please go eat?”

There was a pause where the Doctor gazed almost blankly at John (surprise, John realised. On Sherlock surprise was irritation. On Mycroft surprise was anger. On the Doctor surprise was apparently a blank expression) River giggled into her hand and gifted John with a kiss to the crown of his head.

“It’s not a ‘box’,” the Doctor finally settled on grumbling in reply, starting to slouch away from them in search of a restaurant, locking the TARDIS absently.

“Is too,” John replied, slipping his arm from around River’s waist to hold her hand instead to make it easier to walk. “It says so on it.”

“What, and things are always what they say they are?” the Doctor snapped back grumpily.

“No, but you haven’t told me yet what it actually is and calling it a box - since that’s what it calls itself and that’s what it’s shaped like - seemed adequate enough.” John was more amused by the Doctor’s attitude than anything else. From all the stories that Amy, Rory and River had decided to share with him once he’d worked out the whole time travel bit he’d concluded that the Doctor was fun loving and cheerful for the most part. This only really changed when his cultural past was brought up. Or, apparently, if he thought River’s affection for him was shared with someone else.

“Angelo’s, I think?” River asked to stop what was ultimately a nonsensical argument. It had been too much of a risk up until then for the pair of them to go to Angelo’s. Partly because Sherlock might turn up at any moment, but mostly because Angelo was still dead set on the belief that John and Sherlock were dating and if he thought for even a second that John might be cheating on Sherlock the evening would not end happily.

The food there _was_ very good, however, and John had been itching to take his new best friend there. Now that they had a third person accompanying them it would look less like a date.

“Shall I text Sherlock?” John asked.

“He’d work out that I’m not human,” the Doctor said, seeming pleased with that fact.

John grinned. So the Doctor _wasn’t_ human. He’d thought so. Unlike Sherlock, he was not only perfectly happy to rely on instinct when the occasion called for it, but also wasn’t ashamed to admit it. “That’s rather the point, I suspect,” he replied cheerfully. “I’ve no doubt that by now Sherlock’s worked out that the grey sludge in the victim’s mouths is not exactly _Earthly_.”

“You’re doing it again, dear,” River hummed into John’s ear, just loud enough for the Doctor to know she’d said something, but too quiet for him to hear what. River winked coquettishly at the taller of the two men and squeezed the hand, swinging it between them, of the shorter. “He thinks it’s _weird_ to say ‘alien’,” she informed the Doctor.

“It is weird,” John defended himself, knowing that it would get the smug little smile that it did. The plan, it seemed, was working out better for River than John thought it might. That was good.

“If you think that’s weird, you should actually _see_ them,” the Doctor proclaimed, opening his mouth to start describing a million and one different alien races to see if it’d make John squirm, only to stopped before he could begin.

“I have. Well, not all of them, but a few. Enough not to find it weird to see them. It’s just saying it that’s strange. It’s liking confessing to being insane.” He stopped short and caught the Doctor’s eye, giving him a long, serious look. “And I’m quite familiar with denial.” There was more in the sentence than just the words, and the Doctor’s eyes flashed to River then back again like quicksilver. And understanding, then. This might work out all for the better after all.

 **Meet at Angelo’s?  
Food with friends  
JW**

John quickly typed out and sent as they walked. It would take them about twenty minutes on foot, at the pace they were going, to get to Angelo’s and that was plenty of time to convince Sherlock to join them.

 **I will not suffer through  
a meal of your awkward  
flirting. Get rid of transport  
SH**

Sherlock wasn’t talking about a taxi, he meant River. Which John wished meant that the other man was jealous of her. It didn’t, it just meant that he considered her below his attention. Shame. John would have thought finding a time traveller, at least, might have impressed Sherlock a little.

 **Having any luck  
with the case?  
JW**

To anyone else it might be an innocuous question. But John knew that Sherlock would read it as a massive neon sign saying ‘John knows something’. He’d made that mistake in the past more than once, and had found himself at the wrong end of Sherlock’s anger when he hadn’t been able to provide any help or insight.

 **What have you found?  
SH**

 **Come to Angelo’s  
JW**

 **River knows something  
SH**

 **Yes.  
JW**

 **Tell me  
SH**

 **John  
SH**

 **Sherlock :P  
JW**

 **Please refrain from  
using emoticons. It is  
plebeian and simplistic  
SH**

 **God’s sake, Sherlock.  
Just come to Angelo’s  
JW**

 **You do not normally use  
expletives in texts  
SH**

 **I apologise for inferring  
that you were not  
worth a time traveller’s  
attention earlier. It was  
not my intention  
SH**

 **I know  
JW**

 **You did not know  
at the time  
SH**

 **You know us mere  
mortals, Sherlock.  
Always being irrational  
JW**

 **You wish for me to  
join you and River  
at Angelo’s tonight?  
SH**

 **And a friend, yes.  
It’ll be worth your  
time, trust me  
JW**

 **I do trust you. If I  
find that you are  
trying to ‘set me up’,  
however, I will not be  
held accountable for  
my actions**   
**SH**

 **Ten minutes? No  
blind date, I promise  
JW**

 **Five  
SH**

John was left staring at Sherlock’s last message but one and he found that he could not delete it. He’d learnt within his first week of knowing Sherlock that it was not worth saving any of the other man’s texts because he was sure to send another fifty for each that wasn’t deleted and as much of a memory as Harry’s old phone had it wasn’t enough for that. But this one - “I do trust you.” - foolish, perhaps, for John to treasure it so much already. If he did save it Sherlock would find it and draw his own conclusions. Conclusions that were likely to be painfully true and easily ignored by Sherlock.

His finger hovered over the button to ‘Delete Thread?’ and hesitated for a moment more.

“Forward it to me?” River murmured in his ear, leaning close again. He should have known that she was reading over his shoulder. “I’ll send it back so you can keep a copy of it.”

“It’s not the same,” John said, wondering why admitting to such a childish sentiment did not feel foolish.

River shrugged and squeezed his fingers again. “Your choice,” she said easily and began to swing their hands again, a quiet injection of ordinariness and cheer that John appreciated silently.

“Please,” he said after a moment and did not look directly at her. It did not stop him from shooting a sideways look at River just as she’s doing the same and both of them smiling slyly over a secret that only they know.


	6. In which Sherlock and the Doctor meet and River's hand is revealed

When they got to Angelo’s Sherlock was already there, sat in a back corner of the restaurant and appearing to be sulking like a child. Angelo frowned briefly after greeting John, his eyes following River suspiciously, but the scowl soon passed when John gave up her hand in favour of squidging up next to Sherlock in the booth.

“Why did we have to come here?” Sherlock hissed. “This is ou- _my_ place.”

“Is that why you’re not sat at our usual table?” John asked, raising an eyebrow and waving River and the Doctor over.

Sherlock eyed him narrowly. “ _My_ usual table only has space for three people. You said that there would be four of us.”

John didn’t even bother to give that a reply, only giving Sherlock a sceptical look that the consulting detective pointedly ignored. If Sherlock weren’t sulking he would have taken his normal table and not care if someone couldn’t sit down. He glanced at River and found that she was watching their byplay with interest, eyes flickering between him and Sherlock, before briefly flashing to the Doctor and back. The Doctor was wearing a very similar pouty face to Sherlock and John grinned, before winking at her and beckoning her to sit next to him.

Although Sherlock was sat in about the middle, the Doctor chose to sit next to River so that the four of them were all squeezed in one side. River giggled and patted John’s thigh briefly, wriggling her bum to make more space for herself. The Doctor appeared to be as pleased by the wriggling as he was irritated by the patting, while Sherlock just sent all of them the icy glare of doom he normally reserved for Anderson or a particularly dull client.

“Well, this is friendly, isn’t it?” John joked, casually reaching around to place an arm across River’s shoulders.

“John. Really. Enough pleasantries. You said that your… _latest thing_ had information.”

“’Latest thing’?” River interrupted before John could articulate a response. “Why, Johnny, and I thought I was the only one!” she exclaimed dramatically, clutching her chest and pretending to faint into John’s lap.

John flushed, but continued the act, catching her gallantly and kissing the back of her hand. “There are certain things where you will always be the first,” he told her, throwing in a wink for good measure and doing his utmost to hide the giggles that were attempting to bubble forth at seeing the Doctor stiffen in anger next to River and feeling the consistent jiggling of Sherlock’s leg against his own go dangerously still.

“You said that you had information,” Sherlock ground out, his attempt at imitating a statue apparently also going so far as his jaw.

“Sherlock, you’ve already met River. Now, I’d like you to meet her friend the Doctor.”

Sherlock opened his mouth - probably to insist once again that that was not the reason why he’d agreed to meet John there - but snapped it shut again. Because John knew Sherlock very well and, being the man he was, he could not help but let his eyes wander over to the Doctor. Because Sherlock had to know everything about everyone. He didn’t like not being able to tell them their life stories and preferred to make little guesses to not having a theory at all. And the Doctor, John knew already, was one hell of a mystery.

“I thought River didn’t make sense,” Sherlock muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

“Doctor, meet Sherlock Holmes,” John continued the introduction with the air of someone very satisfied with themselves.

The Doctor was, as John had suspected, a bit of a fan of Sherlock (how naïve of John to think that someone who could travel through all of time and space would not have heard of the giant ego that was Sherlock Holmes) and took the opportunity to make his existence known to the consulting detective.

“Mr Sherlock Holmes! Such a pleasure to actually meet you! Heard everything about you through Johnny here, of course, but it does make a difference when you actually meet someone, doesn’t it? You’re not as tall as I expected, but he’s shorter, so it’s all a matter of perspective really, isn’t it? I’m taller than normal, anyway, so maybe it’s me. It is nice to meet you.”

“So you’re an alien as well as a time traveller?” Sherlock stated coolly, the Doctor’s monologue apparently having given him enough time to regain some of his equilibrium. “One that changes its appearance fairly regularly. You’re relatively new to this body, but used to it enough that you no longer have as much difficulty balancing, although you do still trip over or into things more than you’d like. This is discordant with your dexterity, so I would say that you’re used to changing bodies, but not comfortable with it. Hasn’t happened very often perhaps, but more likely it’s very painful - oh. You have to die to change, don’t you? Handy defence mechanism. Which means thirty different bodies at the very least, more likely closer to fifty.

“You’ve spent quite a lot of time around humans, but not as much as you’d like. You were a soldier, too, at some point. And very good at it. Too good, and now you feel guilty at that skill. You enjoy companionship, but almost always end up losing your companion in a way that is very emotionally painful and so go through stints of solitary self-pity. And that’s why Amy and Rory are stuck in their dull little town house, selling perfume and bothering John, because they were your companions and you got rid of them. And isn’t that awkward?

“John, if I were you, I’d dump River as fast as you can,” Sherlock finished, before ignoring them all in favour for the food that Angelo brought over.

“Oh he’s good,” the Doctor said brightly, although there was a very slight tremble in his words before he gathered himself together. “Not as much detail as I expected, but he got most of the big things. Although other than that little misunderstanding over whether I was dead or not, I don’t see how it’s awkward with Amy and Rory.”

Sherlock shot him a scornful look that said better than words could ever hope to that the Doctor was being stupid and could please at least attempt to keep up. “You’re married to their daughter and because you’re both time travellers you don’t meet in the right order so she doesn’t even remember. Awkward.”

“We’re married?” River squawked as John buried his face in his hands and the Doctor tried to look innocent instead of the smug grin that tried to take over his face. Sherlock was the first to understand that his revealing the marriage was exactly what the Doctor had hoped he’d do and the look of superiority changed to considering, as though he was deciding whether to be impressed or not.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” River asked at a normal pitch, leaning towards the Doctor and pulling away from John. “Why _did_ you tell me?”

“There was no reason for you not to know. It’ll happen very soon in your timeline anyway. Maybe I’m just making sure you’re prepared,” the Doctor replied, smugness gone and looking for all the world as if River was the only thing he could see or hear or smell.

“Or maybe you didn’t like the fact that it was John’s arm around me?” River suggested instead. “Stupid man.”

The Doctor reached up with one hand and tugged gently at a handful of curls. “Me? Or him?”

“You. I’ve always been in love with you. How did you not notice that?”

“Well you were all over John. How was I supposed to know that you hadn’t decided to give up on me and the ridiculousness that is our timeline?”

John finally raised his head from his hands and interrupted. “You are an idiot,” he agreed with River. “That woman is head over heels for you. And you are with her. Now will you please accept that and go and find the nearest bed or solid surface in a private location?”

“That sounds like a brilliant idea!” River agreed, jumping up from the seat and pushing the Doctor off in the process. She paused long enough to kiss John on the forehead and bid him and Sherlock good bye before dragging a still spluttering Doctor from the restaurant.

The cold air was like a breath of rationality across her, and River hesitated as she finally tugged the Doctor free of the warmth of the building. Her fingers went from encircling his wrist to entwining with his and she squeezed, bright blue eyes seeking out his own.

“Oh, River, you _naughty_ girl,” he told her, leaning down into her and laughing breathlessly into her hair. She laughed along, delighted that he was pleased by her little intervention and not irritated.

“Do you think it’ll be enough?” she asked.

The Doctor paused for a moment, crowding her against the window in the pretence of kissing her and instead looking over her shoulder to watch where Sherlock and John still sat stiffly opposite each other. “Maybe. Probably. But you know us idiot geniuses.”

“Yes,” she giggled, drawing his head to hers to actually kiss him. “Yes I do,” she whispered against his lips.

“Oi, I didn’t take that long!” the Doctor protested, a satisfied smile resting on his lips from the kiss. He leant back but kept an arm around her as they ambled back towards the TARDIS.

“Longer than a year, sweetie,” she teased, standing on tip toes to brush a kiss against his jaw. He smiled again and it was a comfortable, safe smile that only she and his closest friends could bring out on him.

“Not a year in each other’s constant company.”

River laughed abruptly at him. “No, but I couldn’t have been any more obvious if I tried. Well, when I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

They walked a while in silence, enjoying their brief respite from chaos and the whirlwind of life and adventure.

“Why did you decide to… help John?” the Doctor asked.

River didn’t answer immediately. She wanted to make sure she got this answer right. “Do you remember the way Rory looked whenever he thought he wasn’t enough for Amy? When he thought that she’d always pick you over him?”

“Yes,” and the word held more weight than the Doctor intended. He had been… relieved when Amy had finally managed to sort out the majority of her emotional issues.

“That was John’s face. Just… all the time. For five and a half weeks, Doctor. And then every once in a while Sherlock would acknowledge him and his face would light up like someone had delivered him Christmas and his Birthday all at once. And you and I both know where their story leads, where it could go and where it might not. Mary Morstan, John Watson’s perfect woman, is out there somewhere. And Sherlock will always have enough cases, enough life to not need love. But if they were to recognise their love for one another…”

“They would burn like a supernova,” the Doctor finished for her. “Don’t you love it when a story could end in so many possible ways?”

“Sometimes,” she replied, and kissed him softly again. “Whatever they decide to do from here, they will be magnificent.”

They walked most of the rest of the way in more silence, but as they neared the TARDIS, the Doctor felt the need to ask - “Did you have to drape yourself all over him?”

River chuckled and nodded. “You should have seen Sherlock’s face.”

The Doctor huffed and pouted a little, removing his arm from her to delve into his pocket and pick out the key.

River watched him with a smirk, shivering a little as the side that had been shielded from the cold by him was revealed to the air. “Did it work, my Plan?” she asked softly, stepping closer to him.

“I told you, I don’t - oh.” He stopped talking, and leant against the TARDIS as she took another step towards him, one of her hands moving to pin one of his wrists to the door, the other taking the key and slipping it into the lock.

She gave a soft hum of appreciation as she leant against him, every part of her touching every part of him. “Not talking about Sherlock, Doctor,” she told him, turning the key and letting him stumble backwards as the door he was leaning against opened.

“No, well, I suppose - are you-”

River stopped him with a kiss, hard and short and promising more. “You were right when you said I’d been very naughty,” she said, reminding him of his earlier words. “And now we’re _all_ alone with the TARDIS. What are you going to do about it?”

Reminding him of exactly where he was had just the effect she’d been hoping it might. His hesitation; the strange uncertainty he had around her, faded. The TARDIS was his safe zone, it was his home and his love and River? Well, River was his wife.

The Doctor slowly untied his bowtie, grinning like a Cheshire cat and kicked the door shut behind him. “I may just have to restrain you,” he commented lightly, herding her back towards the soft chair to one side of the console room. “But I’m not sure you’d consider that punishment.”

“Oh, I do love it when you get jealous,” she replied, smirking up at him as she plopped herself down on the seat, hitching her skirt up a little as she did so. Then she eyed the strip of cloth in his hand. “Although, if you use that bowtie, I’m afraid you’ll never get it back.”


	7. In which John and Sherlock talk and John tries not to act like a teenager

As soon as they were gone Sherlock folded his coat over one arm and stood fluidly, moving towards the table that he and John usually utilised, waiting surprisingly patiently for John to gather his things and follow more slowly.

“She knew,” Sherlock finally remarked once John was settled opposite him and playing with his pasta more than eating it.

“Sorry - knew what?”

There was that huff the taller man made when someone had said something particularly dim. “That she marries him. In fact, if I am not very much mistaken, I would say that she has already married him, although he has not yet married her - not properly, anyway.” Sherlock paused, watching John’s movements and suddenly glaring at him. “You knew!” he declared.

“I knew she’d marry him, certainly. I didn’t know that she knew that,” John replied in a vaguely apologetic manner.

“Then why go ahead with the plan?” Sherlock asked, looking honestly baffled. “If you knew that they’d get together?”

John tilted his head back and forced himself to relax back against the chair. “It wasn’t my idea,” he started, keeping his features carefully blank. “River never meets people in the right order, especially not the Doctor. When I met her the first time it was immediately after she’d bumped into him before he had acknowledged how he felt about her, let alone worked out who she was. The moment of time we’re living in now is a place where the Doctor will always come back to eventually, because Amy and Rory are here. River was looking for someone who could be a friend, who wouldn’t want more than that but would happily give her the cuddles she missed out on by never meeting him in the right order.”

“What do you get out of it?” Sherlock asked, tilting his head to the side like a curious bird.

“The same,” John replied immediately, not stopping to think about the many numbers of ways those words could misinterpreted - and correctly interpreted too.

And Sherlock, of course, was the most brilliant man John had ever known. So fast to find the correct pathways, to reveal what is obscured and dig up secrets to show the world that no one wanted to see. “You’re in love,” he stated simply, although there was something in his tone that John could not identify. That he didn’t think he wanted to identify, just in case it was something horrible.

Not seeing any reason to deny it when they both knew it would be a lie, John just nodded once, the muscles in his shoulders and back starting to bunch again.

“With someone who does not feel the same,” Sherlock continued, brows furrowed and steepling his fingers over his half-finished meal. “Not Sarah, then, as she was the most willing of your things to put up with me. No one at the Yard, you’re far too eager to leave them behind at a moment’s notice. No one at St Bart’s either, for the same reason-”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Sherlock!” John interrupted loudly. “How can you be such an idiot when you’re such a genius? Who’s the one person I drop everything for? That I’d do anything for? Who’s the one person that I follow around blindly like the fucking moron I am?”

There was crisp silence for a moment, people sat on the tables nearest them no longer pretending not to listen.

Then -

“Oh,” a short exhalation of breath, not so much a word as a noise of surprised understanding.

“Right,” John agreed. “‘ _Oh_ ’. Now we’re on the same page.”

“But,” Sherlock started, then uncharacteristically stopped, eyes scanning John’s face with furious speed, searching for an answer that continued to allude him. “You said the Doctor hadn’t acknowledged his feeling for her?” he asked softly, eyes pale and confused.

John fought down a bitter chuckle. “Are you trying to say that you’re secretly in love with me too?”

Sherlock was looking more and more confused, the not knowing what to do or say causing him to retreat from himself and he looked like a child, desperate to keep hold of something but unsure how. “You didn’t know?”

John gaped. He didn’t even bother trying to find the right words to say, doubtless anything that came out of his mouth in the next few moments would be insulting if they were at all comprehensible.

“I had assumed,” Sherlock murmured quietly, “that given the number of clues I had given you that you were aware of my… _attraction_ towards you and that for the sake of our friendship you were just ignoring it.”

“Ignoring it?” John blurted out. “How could I ignore something that - clues? What clues did you - oh hell in a hand basket!” he exclaimed lastly after the string of half finished sentences and dropped his head to the table with a dull thunk.

“John?” Sherlock enquired almost nervously.

John held up a finger, not moving from his slumped position over the table. “My brain doesn’t work quite as fast as yours, Sherlock, give me a minute,” he requested, then dropped his hand, closed his eyes and for a very brief moment tried to imagine none if had happened.

Then what Sherlock had said hit him full force and before he could think the better of it, John stood up sharply, leant across the table and tilted Sherlock’s head back so that he could kiss him, quite thoroughly, on the lips. For a brief moment the consulting detective didn’t move and John feared the worst, feared that he might have somehow, incredibly, drawn the wrong conclusions. But the moment was soon gone as Sherlock straightened in his seat, his hands moving to cup John’s jaw and returning the kiss with as much enthusiasm and lack of finesse as John could possibly expect.

Kissing was quite obviously something that Sherlock did not do very often. Their noses smashed together, lips got caught between teeth in a painful rather than deliberate way and when John did manage to slip his tongue into the younger man’s mouth Sherlock almost choked in surprise. He’d also forgotten to breathe, and consequently ended the kiss earlier than either of them would have liked to lean back and gasp for a breath.

It was enough to remind the pair of them where they were and John abruptly let go of Sherlock’s hair and sat down, blushing at the suddenly averted gazes of the far too nosy other customers.

Sherlock did not, as one might expect, have the decency to look ashamed of being snogged so thoroughly in public. In fact, after he had finished berating himself about the premature end to their first kiss, he was looking rather pleased with himself.

“You realise this means we’re both idiots?” John asked once he’d regained enough composure to talk without a quiver in his voice.

Sherlock frowned only very briefly at that before his previous grin reappeared, making John consider what possible effects sex and post-coital glow might have on his moody periods. If Sherlock were any less of the slender, severe man he was, that grin could almost be described as ‘soppy’.

“How so?” Sherlock asked.

“We’ve been blind to how the other feels,” John remarked too casually. “And in doing so have wasted months chasing our own tails rather than - well, doing something a bit more productive.”

Sherlock snorted inelegantly and started eating his meal again. “I have never, as you say, ‘chased my tail’. And homosexual coitus can hardly be called productive, since the only thing sex has ever produced was babies. Which two men can’t succeed at without third party help for obvious reasons.”

John laughed openly at that, a pale blush still highlighting his cheeks. “God, Sherlock, don’t ever change.”

A strange tension spread across Sherlock’s features and it looked remarkably like he was nervous. “I’m afraid change is part of the human condition, John. Whether I wish to or not-”

“I won’t leave,” John told him blankly. “Not voluntarily. Probably not even if you kicked me out. I don’t mean the natural human changes we all go through. I’m just asking that you don’t try and change who you are. You, just as you are, with body parts in the fridge and not eating properly and staying up ‘til four in the morning and your sheer genius - _you_ are who I fell in love with. Who I continue to fall in love with everyday.”

“I rather fear, Dr Watson,” Sherlock began gravely, a twinkle of good humour in his eye, “That the possibility of me actively trying to change who I am was always incredibly small. With such a glowing endorsement as that, however, it would take nothing less than an act of God.”

John raised an eyebrow. “You don’t believe in God.”

“Precisely, my dear,” Sherlock responded with a fond smile.

And, God, he was too old to be feeling anything that even remotely resembled butterflies, but if John were to say that his stomach didn’t flip at those words, he’d be lying. If he had allowed himself to imagine what it might be like to be with Sherlock - and he had been weak enough to indulge from time to time - terms of endearment had not come into it. ‘Moron’ or ‘idiot’ perhaps, if they could be called such, but never anything close to ‘my dear’.

“Sherlock,” John said, heart thumping near his ears.

“Yes?”

“That - ah - _advise_ , I gave the Doctor earlier?”

Sherlock’s smirk was one that had irritated John in previous circumstances, but here and now, when he was the reason for it being there it was just the right amount of superior genius and delightfully aroused. “‘Nearest bed or solid surface’?” he quoted.

“In a _private_ location,” John reminded with his own lascivious smile. He might suddenly be feeling like a horny teenager once more, but he wasn’t going to act like one. Well. Not in public at least. As soon as they got to 221B all bets were off. And no doubt Sherlock could deduce that thought just from the tilt of his head or the degree of curvature in his smile because before he’d finished talking, Sherlock had stood up, thrown a couple of notes at the table and was twirling towards the door.

John admired the view of Sherlock in that ridiculous, _gorgeous_ coat of his before jumping up to follow him. They didn’t run back to the flat, although their pace was brisker than their usual walking speed, but it gave John plenty of time to actually _look_. He hadn’t allowed himself before because he’d just known that one day, if he looked too much, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from touching.

But now he not only had permission to touch, but Sherlock welcomed it, wanted it. And that felt like a privilege of epic proportions. Sherlock was about as far from shy as it was possible to be, but he was not a person to suffer fools and it was for this reason that John knew that he was one of very few people who had ever been able to claim possession of part of Sherlock’s heart. And that knowledge roared through him like a tornado. It was something John was going to take very, very good care of; that he would clutch hold of for as long as he possibly could.

So it was with a strange look of possessiveness, longing and adoration that John stepped across the threshold, only managing to drag his eyes away from Sherlock long enough to acknowledge Mrs Hudson.

“Oh, have you boys finally got your heads on straight?” she tittered happily. “About time too! I was beginning to despair. The pair of you are hopeless you know. Now go on upstairs and I’ll leave you be. I’ll pop out and get some bacon for a celebratory brunch tomorrow, I think.”

“Mrs Hudson, you are magnificent,” Sherlock said, bestowing a rare compliment upon her and smiling as she blushed and fluttered her hands.

“Such a charmer, your young man,” she whispered to John, purposefully being too loud to be confidential. “Pretends not to be, but you and I know the truth.” She dropped him a wink then waved the pair of them up the stairs. “Go on then, make nice,” she told them, before turning away from them and muttering about her purse and treating them tomorrow.

“Make nice?” Sherlock murmured into John’s ear as they closed the door to their flat behind them.

John looked up at him with a broad grin and tugged at the scarf until it came undone and fluttered to the floor. “Are we using ‘nice’ as a euphemism for ‘love’ now?” he couldn’t help but ask and shrugged off his jacket.

Sherlock leant forward into the small space between them and rested his head against the door beside John’s head. “I nice you,” he murmured, then giggled. “Doesn’t quite work.”

John slipped his hand under Sherlock’s coat and pushed along his shoulders until it fell to the floor with the scarf and jacket. “I love you too,” John replied, turning his head and kissing Sherlock soundly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta da! It's finished! With a lovely sappy, sexy ending for both of our favourite couples. Do leave some love, won't you? I'd love to hear what you have to say. It's possible that I will write some more fic in this 'verse, but I have too many projects at the moment to start a new one, so I can't promise anything.   
> Much love  
> Yellow  
> xx


End file.
